One night, I ate dinner beside Michael Badnarik, the 2004 Libertarian candidate for president, who makes a living these days lecturing on the Constitution. In the 1970s, as a young man, Badnarik had a dispute with the IRS that set him on a new course: He hasn’t paid taxes since 1994, refuses to get a driver’s license, and carries an unlicensed firearm. He allows people to pay him in silver for his speaking engagements: ‘When the government falls apart, I’ll still be able to buy food.’ He also wants Texas, where he lives, to secede from the United States, and he plans to run for the presidency of Texas afterwards.

Badnarik declined to go on shore in Mexico. ‘It’s a lawless society,’ he explained.